In July 2021, Microsoft announced Windows 365, which takes the operating system to the Microsoft Cloud, securely streaming the full Windows experience – including all your apps, data, and settings to your personal or corporate devices. At that time, Microsoft mentioned that Windows 365 will be available to everyone in early August, 2021. And as of today, Windows 365 is now available to everyone. In this article, we’ll see how to start using Windows 365 for your organization.
Windows 365 is entitled as the world’s first Cloud PC. A Cloud PC is your personalized desktop, apps, settings, and content streamed securely from the cloud to your devices. It enables you to decrease costs while lowering the complexity of your environment as you deploy and manage virtual endpoints in Microsoft Endpoint Manager. Under the Cloud PC, you can run Windows 10 and also, Windows 11 when it is available to everyone later this year. Windows 365 is mainly aimed for mid-size to large-size organizations. Here’s how you can start off by selecting a Windows 365 variant for your organization.
How to start using Windows 365 for your organization
Windows 365 is mainly available in Business or Enterprise variants. You’ve to first go through this Windows 365 page to confirm which variant best meets your organization needs. Once you’ve finalized Windows 365 variant and its plan, follow these steps:
1. Go to https://admin.microsoft.com and sign-in with global administrator account to go Microsoft 365 admin center.
2. In the left pane, click on Billing > Purchase services. Then select Windows 365 category. Now select Windows 365 variant you want and click Details.
Image credits: Microsoft
3. In next screen, select a plan and license quantity and finally hit Buy button and follow on-screen instructions to complete the order.
Image credits: Microsoft
4. After you’ve the purchased licenses activated, you can select users to assign those licenses.
Image credits: Microsoft
5. Next, the users who have been assigned Windows 365 licenses can now head over to https://windows365.microsoft.com sign-in with organization account. The Cloud PC will now be created for the user then and this process may take around 10 to 30 minutes to complete.
6. Once the Cloud PC is ready, user can click on Open in browser.
Image credits: Microsoft
7. Finally, the user should arrive to Windows Desktop and they can now manage this system like physical machine OS.
Image credits: Microsoft
For more information, you can refer this official Microsoft documentation for Windows 365 Business.
That’s it!
Related: How to activate Microsoft 365 E5 Developer subscription.
